When patience failed during the sieges of the middle ages, the siege engineers of the French lords built great assault machines called trebuchets to launch massive (up to approximately one ton, not sure if this is metric!) projectiles at their enemies. “Trebuchet” is derived from the Middle French verb trebuch, meaning “to tumble or fall over,” in reference to the throwing arm of the trebuchet. Though the first instance of tension or torsion-based artillery is thought to have originated in China as early as the fourth century, the trebuchet was the first war machine to use gravitational and leverage principles to launch a projectile. A catapult uses the elasticity of different materials to provide the launching force, like a bow or slingshot,
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Once this is done, the counterweight (i.e. potential energy) is increased by weight (in this experiment those take the form of ~0.5 kg weights) being added. The sling and projectile are put into position below the hinge under the beam, and upon triggering the projectile is accelerated as the gravitational potential energy of the counterweight begins to turn into kinetic energy (energy of movement). The sling portion of the trebuchet serves to magnify this by first moving the projectile laterally, across the ground (all of the gravitational potential energy is converted to momentum in the projectile, with only friction acting against it). It then transfers this into angular velocity as the arm reaches a nearly vertical position and the sling pivots around the end of the arm, thus effectively doubling the length of the long end of the arm. Since the counterweight travels a smaller distance than the projectile, this causes the projectile to reach a higher velocity than the counterweight, the counterweight must be heavier than the projectile. When the sling reaches a certain point during the rotation, one of the two ends of the sling slips from the long arm, opening the pouch and allowing the projectile to proceed in a ballistic trajectory. Again, the ideal point of release is at a 45°.
We built a trebuchet to test our knowledge of physics, both the …show more content…
In addition, it allowed us an opportunity to learn about trebuchet design and the history of medieval warfare, at least within the context of launching projectiles. Aiming the trebuchet was not easily done, which allowed us the opportunity to test out adjustments on the projectile and experiment with our intuition and test our conceptual understanding of physics. It would be interesting for future projects to build a larger trebuchet to highlight the various stresses upon the materials in the design and to test the ability of a class to improve the accuracy and distance of the projectile’s trajectory. Finally, the project was an entertaining way to launch projectiles at Barry within an academic
Once this is done, the counterweight (i.e. potential energy) is increased by weight (in this experiment those take the form of ~0.5 kg weights) being added. The sling and projectile are put into position below the hinge under the beam, and upon triggering the projectile is accelerated as the gravitational potential energy of the counterweight begins to turn into kinetic energy (energy of movement). The sling portion of the trebuchet serves to magnify this by first moving the projectile laterally, across the ground (all of the gravitational potential energy is converted to momentum in the projectile, with only friction acting against it). It then transfers this into angular velocity as the arm reaches a nearly vertical position and the sling pivots around the end of the arm, thus effectively doubling the length of the long end of the arm. Since the counterweight travels a smaller distance than the projectile, this causes the projectile to reach a higher velocity than the counterweight, the counterweight must be heavier than the projectile. When the sling reaches a certain point during the rotation, one of the two ends of the sling slips from the long arm, opening the pouch and allowing the projectile to proceed in a ballistic trajectory. Again, the ideal point of release is at a 45°.
We built a trebuchet to test our knowledge of physics, both the …show more content…
In addition, it allowed us an opportunity to learn about trebuchet design and the history of medieval warfare, at least within the context of launching projectiles. Aiming the trebuchet was not easily done, which allowed us the opportunity to test out adjustments on the projectile and experiment with our intuition and test our conceptual understanding of physics. It would be interesting for future projects to build a larger trebuchet to highlight the various stresses upon the materials in the design and to test the ability of a class to improve the accuracy and distance of the projectile’s trajectory. Finally, the project was an entertaining way to launch projectiles at Barry within an academic